Python package installation

Python packages in Divio projects are installed using pip. Our Dockerfile for Python projects performs three operations in sequence: it compiles a list of dependencies, creates a list of wheels, and installs the wheels, using the following commands:

RUN pip-reqs compile && \                   # compile a list of dependencies
    pip-reqs resolve && \                   # create a list of wheels
    pip install \                           # install the wheels
        --no-index --no-deps \              # ...disallows use of the index, prevents implicit installation of dependencies
        --requirement requirements.urls

Selective execution of commands

By removing or commenting out the pip-reqs compile instruction after a successful compilation of all requirements, you will prevent successive builds from reprocessing, pinning all the dependencies to exact versions. This can be valuable, as upstream dependencies of dependencies may change at any time, and can cause a failure on successive deployment - even if you haven’t changed anything in the project yourself. See How to pin all of your project’s Python dependencies for more.

To isolate the behaviour and effects of any of these three commands, they can be run individually, for example:

docker-compose run web pip-reqs compile

Alternatively, if you’re not able to run commands in a container, comment out the ones you don’t want to execute, and try building with docker-compose build.

Summary of commands

command pip-reqs compile pip-reqs resolve pip install
input requirements.txt requirements.urls
action creates a complete dependency list creates a list of wheels installs the wheels
output requirements.txt requirements.urls  
fails if a dependency cannot be found a wheel cannot be found pip is unable to install the wheel
typical cause dependency conflict or no longer available the wheels proxy was unable to build a wheel the wheel requires additional components for installation

Our wheels proxy

We maintain our own DevPi server for private packages, and a Python wheels proxy.

Our wheels proxy creates wheels for all packages on PyPI.

A Python wheel is a pre-compiled package, built for a particular platform (a combination of the target operating system, architecture and Python version). Wheels offer numerous advantages over other Python packaging options. On our platform, they reduce installation times significantly, both locally and on our infrastructure. Using wheels also allows us to perform additional dependency resolution during installation.

Typical issues when installing wheels

You will occasionally see an error in a deployment log that clearly refers to installation of Python packages, occurring after the output:

Step 7/9 : RUN pip-reqs compile &&
               pip-reqs resolve &&
               pip install --no-index --no-deps --requirement requirements.urls

This indicates that one of those commands has failed, usually in one of the following ways:

A dependency cannot be found (from pip-reqs compile)

Sometimes a dependency cannot be found. This could be because a version has been specified incorrectly, or no longer exists:

Could not find a version that matches django==1.11.29,>2.0

Most commonly, it’s because different packages in the same project either explicitly or implicitly specify conflicting versions of a dependency (for example, django==1.11.29 and django>2.0 as above) at the same time. See How to identify and resolve a dependency conflict for more on this.

A wheel cannot be built (from pip-reqs resolve)

Occasionally, a wheel cannot be built for a particular package. This is usually because although the package exists on PyPI, it is not compatible with the particular version of Python specified for that wheel (an example might be a Python 2 package in a Python 3 environment) and the attempt to build the wheel fails.

The error will appear in the logs as:

HTTPError: 500 Server Error: Internal Server Error

from the wheels server. In such a case, check that the dependency mentioned is in fact suitable for the environment.

A wheel cannot be installed (from pip install)

Sometimes, a wheel can be found and downloaded, but fails to install. Example output (in this case for jupyter) might be:

Installing build dependencies: started
Installing build dependencies: finished with status 'error'
ERROR: Complete output from command /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pip install --ignore-installed --no-user --prefix /tmp/pip-build-env-2xou1hp2/overlay --no-warn-script-location --no-binary :none: --only-binary :none: --no-index -- setuptools wheel jupyter:
ERROR: Collecting setuptools
ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement setuptools (from versions: none)
ERROR: No matching distribution found for setuptools

In this case, the wheel was found and downloaded, but could not be installed because it contained a “hidden” dependency (setuptools). One option is to contact Divio support; we can ensure that the wheel is built with this requirement.

Another is to bypass the wheels proxy, described in Not using the wheels proxy below.

Not using the wheels proxy

You don’t have to use our wheels proxy, though it’s the default and it’s strongly recommended. To change the way Python installs packages, see the Dockerfile.

Bypassing the proxy for a particular dependency

First, you would remove the dependency from the so that it is not processed by the default installation commands; then, it would be added to the Dockerfile just before them, for example:

RUN pip install jupyter==1.0.0

Bypassing the proxy altogether

This is not recommended, but the default installation commands can be replaced with:

RUN pip install --requirement

Our standard Dockerfile for Python/Django projects contains:

ENV PIP_INDEX_URL=${PIP_INDEX_URL:-${WHEELS_PLATFORM:-aldryn-baseproject-py3}/+simple/} \

Removing this will use PyPI instead of our own PyPI server.


See Docker image/layer caching and re-use for the implications of caching for package installation with pip.